Poems & Ballads Volume I Part 8

ANACTORIA

[Greek: tinos au ty peithoi maps sagneusas philotata?]

SAPPHO.

My life is bitter with thy love; thine eyes Blind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighs Divide my flesh and spirit with soft sound, And my blood strengthens, and my veins abound.

I pray thee sigh not, speak not, draw not breath; Let life burn down, and dream it is not death.

I would the sea had hidden us, the fire (Wilt thou fear that, and fear not my desire?) Severed the bones that bleach, the flesh that cleaves, And let our sifted ashes drop like leaves.

I feel thy blood against my blood: my pain Pains thee, and lips bruise lips, and vein stings vein.

Let fruit be crushed on fruit, let flower on flower, Breast kindle breast, and either burn one hour.

Why wilt thou follow lesser loves? are thine Too weak to bear these hands and lips of mine?

I charge thee for my life's sake, O too sweet To crush love with thy cruel faultless feet, I charge thee keep thy lips from hers or his, Sweetest, till theirs be sweeter than my kiss.

Lest I too lure, a swallow for a dove, Erotion or Erinna to my love.

I would my love could kill thee; I am satiated With seeing thee live, and fain would have thee dead.

I would earth had thy body as fruit to eat, And no mouth but some serpent's found thee sweet.

I would find grievous ways to have thee slain, Intense device, and superflux of pain; Vex thee with amorous agonies, and shake Life at thy lips, and leave it there to ache; Strain out thy soul with pangs too soft to kill, Intolerable interludes, and infinite ill; Relapse and reluctation of the breath, Dumb tunes and shuddering semitones of death.

I am weary of all thy words and soft strange ways, Of all love's fiery nights and all his days, And all the broken kisses salt as brine That shuddering lips make moist with waterish wine, And eyes the bluer for all those hidden hours That pleasure fills with tears and feeds from flowers, Fierce at the heart with fire that half comes through, But all the flowerlike white stained round with blue; The fervent underlid, and that above Lifted with laughter or abashed with love; Thine amorous girdle, full of thee and fair, And leavings of the lilies in thine hair.

Yea, all sweet words of thine and all thy ways, And all the fruit of nights and flower of days, And stinging lips wherein the hot sweet brine That Love was born of burns and foams like wine, And eyes insatiable of amorous hours, Fervent as fire and delicate as flowers, Coloured like night at heart, but cloven through Like night with flame, dyed round like night with blue, Clothed with deep eyelids under and above-- Yea, all thy beauty sickens me with love; Thy girdle empty of thee and now not fair, And ruinous lilies in thy languid hair.

Ah, take no thought for Love's sake; shall this be, And she who loves thy lover not love thee?

Sweet soul, sweet mouth of all that laughs and lives, Mine is she, very mine; and she forgives.

For I beheld in sleep the light that is In her high place in Paphos, heard the kiss Of body and soul that mix with eager tears And laughter stinging through the eyes and ears; Saw Love, as burning flame from crown to feet, Imperishable, upon her storied seat; Clear eyelids lifted toward the north and south, A mind of many colours, and a mouth Of many tunes and kisses; and she bowed, With all her subtle face laughing aloud, Bowed down upon me, saying, "Who doth thee wrong, Sappho?" but thou--thy body is the song, Thy mouth the music; thou art more than I, Though my voice die not till the whole world die; Though men that hear it madden; though love weep, Though nature change, though shame be charmed to sleep.

Ah, wilt thou slay me lest I kiss thee dead?

Yet the queen laughed from her sweet heart and said: "Even she that flies shall follow for thy sake, And she shall give thee gifts that would not take, Shall kiss that would not kiss thee" (yea, kiss me) "When thou wouldst not"--when I would not kiss thee!

Ah, more to me than all men as thou art, Shall not my songs a.s.suage her at the heart?

Ah, sweet to me as life seems sweet to death, Why should her wrath fill thee with fearful breath?

Nay, sweet, for is she G.o.d alone? hath she Made earth and all the centuries of the sea, Taught the sun ways to travel, woven most fine The moonbeams, shed the starbeams forth as wine, Bound with her myrtles, beaten with her rods, The young men and the maidens and the G.o.ds?

Have we not lips to love with, eyes for tears, And summer and flower of women and of years?

Stars for the foot of morning, and for noon Sunlight, and exaltation of the moon; Waters that answer waters, fields that wear Lilies, and languor of the Lesbian air?

Beyond those flying feet of fluttered doves, Are there not other G.o.ds for other loves?

Yea, though she scourge thee, sweetest, for my sake, Blossom not thorns and flowers not blood should break.

Ah that my lips were tuneless lips, but pressed To the bruised blossom of thy scourged white breast!

Ah that my mouth for Muses' milk were fed On the sweet blood thy sweet small wounds had bled!

That with my tongue I felt them, and could taste The faint flakes from thy bosom to the waist!

That I could drink thy veins as wine, and eat Thy b.r.e.a.s.t.s like honey! that from face to feet Thy body were abolished and consumed, And in my flesh thy very flesh entombed!

Ah, ah, thy beauty! like a beast it bites, Stings like an adder, like an arrow smites.

Ah sweet, and sweet again, and seven times sweet, The paces and the pauses of thy feet!

Ah sweeter than all sleep or summer air The fallen fillets fragrant from thine hair!

Yea, though their alien kisses do me wrong, Sweeter thy lips than mine with all their song; Thy shoulders whiter than a fleece of white, And flower-sweet fingers, good to bruise or bite As honeycomb of the inmost honey-cells, With almond-shaped and roseleaf-coloured sh.e.l.ls And blood like purple blossom at the tips Quivering; and pain made perfect in thy lips For my sake when I hurt thee; O that I Durst crush thee out of life with love, and die, Die of thy pain and my delight, and be Mixed with thy blood and molten into thee!

Would I not plague thee dying overmuch?

Would I not hurt thee perfectly? not touch Thy pores of sense with torture, and make bright Thine eyes with bloodlike tears and grievous light?

Strike pang from pang as note is struck from note, Catch the sob's middle music in thy throat, Take thy limbs living, and new-mould with these A lyre of many faultless agonies?

Feed thee with fever and famine and fine drouth, With perfect pangs convulse thy perfect mouth, Make thy life shudder in thee and burn afresh, And wring thy very spirit through the flesh?

Cruel? but love makes all that love him well As wise as heaven and crueller than h.e.l.l.

Me hath love made more bitter toward thee Than death toward man; but were I made as he Who hath made all things to break them one by one, If my feet trod upon the stars and sun And souls of men as his have alway trod, G.o.d knows I might be crueller than G.o.d.

For who shall change with prayers or thanksgivings The mystery of the cruelty of things?

Or say what G.o.d above all G.o.ds and years With offering and blood-sacrifice of tears, With lamentation from strange lands, from graves Where the snake pastures, from scarred mouths of slaves, From prison, and from plunging prows of ships Through flamelike foam of the sea's closing lips-- With thwartings of strange signs, and wind-blown hair Of comets, desolating the dim air, When darkness is made fast with seals and bars, And fierce reluctance of disastrous stars, Eclipse, and sound of shaken hills, and wings Darkening, and blind inexpiable things-- With sorrow of labouring moons, and altering light And travail of the planets of the night, And weeping of the weary Pleiads seven, Feeds the mute melancholy l.u.s.t of heaven?

Is not his incense bitterness, his meat Murder? his hidden face and iron feet Hath not man known, and felt them on their way Threaten and trample all things and every day?

Hath he not sent us hunger? who hath cursed Spirit and flesh with longing? filled with thirst Their lips who cried unto him? who bade exceed The fervid will, fall short the feeble deed, Bade sink the spirit and the flesh aspire, Pain animate the dust of dead desire, And life yield up her flower to violent fate?

Him would I reach, him smite, him desecrate, Pierce the cold lips of G.o.d with human breath, And mix his immortality with death.

Why hath he made us? what had all we done That we should live and loathe the sterile sun, And with the moon wax paler as she wanes, And pulse by pulse feel time grow through our veins?

Thee too the years shall cover; thou shalt be As the rose born of one same blood with thee, As a song sung, as a word said, and fall Flower-wise, and be not any more at all, Nor any memory of thee anywhere; For never Muse has bound above thine hair The high Pierian flower whose graft outgrows All summer kinship of the mortal rose And colour of deciduous days, nor shed Reflex and flush of heaven about thine head, Nor reddened brows made pale by floral grief With splendid shadow from that lordlier leaf.

Yea, thou shalt be forgotten like spilt wine, Except these kisses of my lips on thine Brand them with immortality; but me-- Men shall not see bright fire nor hear the sea, Nor mix their hearts with music, nor behold Cast forth of heaven, with feet of awful gold And plumeless wings that make the bright air blind, Lightning, with thunder for a hound behind Hunting through fields unfurrowed and unsown, But in the light and laughter, in the moan And music, and in grasp of lip and hand And shudder of water that makes felt on land The immeasurable tremor of all the sea, Memories shall mix and metaphors of me.

Like me shall be the shuddering calm of night, When all the winds of the world for pure delight Close lips that quiver and fold up wings that ache; When nightingales are louder for love's sake, And leaves tremble like lute-strings or like fire; Like me the one star swooning with desire Even at the cold lips of the sleepless moon, As I at thine; like me the waste white noon, Burnt through with barren sunlight; and like me The land-stream and the tide-stream in the sea.

I am sick with time as these with ebb and flow, And by the yearning in my veins I know The yearning sound of waters; and mine eyes Burn as that beamless fire which fills the skies With troubled stars and travailing things of flame; And in my heart the grief consuming them Labours, and in my veins the thirst of these, And all the summer travail of the trees And all the winter sickness; and the earth, Filled full with deadly works of death and birth, Sore spent with hungry l.u.s.ts of birth and death, Has pain like mine in her divided breath; Her spring of leaves is barren, and her fruit Ashes; her boughs are burdened, and her root Fibrous and gnarled with poison; underneath Serpents have gnawn it through with tortuous teeth Made sharp upon the bones of all the dead, And wild birds rend her branches overhead.

These, woven as raiment for his word and thought, These hath G.o.d made, and me as these, and wrought Song, and hath lit it at my lips; and me Earth shall not gather though she feed on thee.

As a shed tear shalt thou be shed; but I-- Lo, earth may labour, men live long and die, Years change and stars, and the high G.o.d devise New things, and old things wane before his eyes Who wields and wrecks them, being more strong than they-- But, having made me, me he shall not slay.

Nor slay nor satiate, like those herds of his Who laugh and live a little, and their kiss Contents them, and their loves are swift and sweet, And sure death grasps and gains them with slow feet, Love they or hate they, strive or bow their knees-- And all these end; he hath his will of these.

Yea, but albeit he slay me, hating me-- Albeit he hide me in the deep dear sea And cover me with cool wan foam, and ease This soul of mine as any soul of these, And give me water and great sweet waves, and make The very sea's name lordlier for my sake, The whole sea sweeter--albeit I die indeed And hide myself and sleep and no man heed, Of me the high G.o.d hath not all his will.

Blossom of branches, and on each high hill Clear air and wind, and under in clamorous vales Fierce noises of the fiery nightingales, Buds burning in the sudden spring like fire, The wan washed sand and the waves' vain desire, Sails seen like blown white flowers at sea, and words That bring tears swiftest, and long notes of birds Violently singing till the whole world sings-- I Sappho shall be one with all these things, With all high things for ever; and my face Seen once, my songs once heard in a strange place, Cleave to men's lives, and waste the days thereof With gladness and much sadness and long love.

Yea, they shall say, earth's womb has borne in vain New things, and never this best thing again; Borne days and men, borne fruits and wars and wine, Seasons and songs, but no song more like mine.

And they shall know me as ye who have known me here, Last year when I loved Atthis, and this year When I love thee; and they shall praise me, and say "She hath all time as all we have our day, Shall she not live and have her will"--even I?

Yea, though thou diest, I say I shall not die.

For these shall give me of their souls, shall give Life, and the days and loves wherewith I live, Shall quicken me with loving, fill with breath, Save me and serve me, strive for me with death.

Alas, that neither moon nor snow nor dew Nor all cold things can purge me wholly through, a.s.suage me nor allay me nor appease, Till supreme sleep shall bring me bloodless ease; Till time wax faint in all his periods; Till fate undo the bondage of the G.o.ds, And lay, to slake and satiate me all through, Lotus and Lethe on my lips like dew, And shed around and over and under me Thick darkness and the insuperable sea.

HYMN TO PROSERPINE

(AFTER THE PROCLAMATION IN ROME OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH)

_Vicisti, Galile._

I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end; G.o.ddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.

Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep; For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.

Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of the dove; But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love.

Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold, A bitter G.o.d to follow, a beautiful G.o.d to behold?

I am sick of singing: the bays burn deep and chafe: I am fain To rest a little from praise and grievous pleasure and pain.

For the G.o.ds we know not of, who give us our daily breath, We know they are cruel as love or life, and lovely as death.

O G.o.ds dethroned and deceased, cast forth, wiped out in a day!

From your wrath is the world released, redeemed from your chains, men say.

New G.o.ds are crowned in the city; their flowers have broken your rods; They are merciful, clothed with pity, the young compa.s.sionate G.o.ds.

But for me their new device is barren, the days are bare; Things long past over suffice, and men forgotten that were.

Time and the G.o.ds are at strife; ye dwell in the midst thereof, Draining a little life from the barren b.r.e.a.s.t.s of love.

I say to you, cease, take rest; yea, I say to you all, be at peace, Till the bitter milk of her breast and the barren bosom shall cease.

Wilt thou yet take all, Galilean? but these thou shalt not take, The laurel, the palms and the pan, the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the nymphs in the brake; b.r.e.a.s.t.s more soft than a dove's, that tremble with tenderer breath; And all the wings of the Loves, and all the joy before death; All the feet of the hours that sound as a single lyre, Dropped and deep in the flowers, with strings that flicker like fire.

More than these wilt thou give, things fairer than all these things?

Nay, for a little we live, and life hath mutable wings.

A little while and we die; shall life not thrive as it may?

For no man under the sky lives twice, outliving his day.

And grief is a grievous thing, and a man hath enough of his tears: Why should he labour, and bring fresh grief to blacken his years?

Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death.

Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day; But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.

Sleep, shall we sleep after all? for the world is not sweet in the end; For the old faiths loosen and fall, the new years ruin and rend.